Posted on 03/10/2005 5:19:05 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
Attempts to explain anti-Western feelings among Muslims have centered on weaknesses in Islamic societies and opposition to U.S. foreign policy. Church historian Meic Pearse bucks the trend by focusing on cultural differences—and along the way makes some prickly points about Western ways.
In Why the Rest Hates the West, Pearse builds on the thesis of Samuel P. Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Orders, Simon & Schuster, 1997) that cultural factors increasingly dominate world conflicts. Pearse more directly asserts that culture, not religion or foreign policy, causes most of the conflicts between the West and the rest.
He asserts that culture includes religion, but it's much more. While Huntington compares civilizations especially in the last 100 years, Pearse focuses on Western developments since the Reformation. And unlike Roger Scruton in The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2002), Pearse does more than contrast the West's secular governments and Islam's divinely ordained political order. His portrayal of Western culture, however, bears some similarity to Scruton's description of non-Western caricatures of it.
Pearse argues that Western culture has changed so much since the Enlightenment that Western "common sense" is no longer self-evident to other cultures. Islamic cultures believe the West is "barbaric," showing lack of respect for the past, religion, family, and honor, while overindulging in sports, entertainment, and sex.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Discussion Material?
divinely ordained political order????
I think there is a lot to this. This is a very odd culture, by our standards.
A lot of it keeps a fairly close tab on women - I don't know if its the women they don't trust or the other males (probably both).
I think the dominant cultural mindset in that region is just terrified at the thought of their daughters dressed like hoochie mamas and slutting around, and their wives in tight pants with 'juicy' plastered across the arse getting overwhelmed by hunky UPS guys for occasional dalliances.
Western culture males have pretty much quietly accepted the fact that they can't discipline their daughters or their sons, and that their wives will have occasional sex with hunky UPS guys. ;-)
For much of the arab world, there is no middle ground, and the western status quo is unthinkable. So some would rather die than have our culture exported to theirs (which will ultimately destroy their culture).
I think the irony here is that the western expansion of culture was largely accidental and more a force of momentum than any specific goal to destroy other cultures. I do think that part of the admin's strategy is to explicitly export our culture to that part of the world with the explicit goal of making them more like us.
The reasoning is that the kind of people who are going to ballgames, ordering pizzas, reading Jackie Collins novels, saving up for vacations, and having sex on the sly with UPS guys or dental hygenists won't be too excited about blowing themselves up.
I think that's largely valid, too.
Do you have the website address to apply at UPS? LOL (pay may not be great, but how 'bout them 'bennies"). Never mind, I've never seen a heavyset UPS or Fedex guy, so I guees I don't qualify....
"I think the irony here is that the western expansion of culture was largely accidental and more a force of momentum than any specific goal to destroy other cultures."
Our government is the number one financier for abortion providers and condom providers in the world. There is nothing accidental about it.
Americans re-elected Billyboy and would have elected him again if he could have run. So instead, Americans voted for Al Gore, who is also pro-abortion, pro-sodomite, etc. The Muslims definitely have a point.
I wasn't speaking about abortion (and have no idea why youare). I am just talking about the export of our generally more permissive and sexually loose culture. Abortion is a sypmtom of that, not the cause.
You can't blame them for thinking America is hell on Earth when we export images of immorality via cable and satellite.
We have one place to thank for most of this: Hollywood.
And who do you think is nearly unanimously in support of the liberal Democrats? Hollywood, not to mention lawyers, corrupt union officials, felons looking for a vote, affirmative action (read this "remedial racism") advocates etc. etc.
Is it just me, or does it seem that all the forces that are aimed at destroying the U.S., either through instilling hatred or fear in other cultures, or setting legal precedent that is eating America from within like a cancer, sapping our strength, are allied with the liberal Democrats?
You know, if you keep looking at what they do, you can see why the get so sensitive when the word "unpatriotic" pops up.
That's cute, we're immoral and Muslims are moral.
I suppose beating your wives, putting machine guns into children's hands, hyjacking planes and crashing them into buildings, looking foward to 72 virgins when you die, killing your daughter because she was raped and caused dishonor to your family, IS morally superior to the EVIL American way of life.
Haha!! There are whole countries full of women that would be tickled pink to be married to my fat @$$, so why should I have to put up with that kind of nonsense from one of these "princesses?" Take a look: http://www.livinginthephilippines.com/#Girlfriend
http://www.adorable-ladies.com
This is only true if the silly Hollywood talk and "reality" shows was truly representative of most Americans. Most people simply laugh that stuff off. Someone needs to tell those people "it's only entertainment, not real life."
Muslims don't care about politics because they have no politics. They government IS religion...
They can't abhor something they don't "know".
I didn't suggest that mandate - We're immoral and they are moral.' I don't know where you got that, sorry.
I don't care at all for the Islamic brand of morality at all (I think few westerners do, in fact).
I was just commenting on what I think is a common (though not exclusive) Muslim male's point of view. Our brand of immorality in intolerable to them (just as their brand is intolerable to many of us). I didn't endorse their brand (nor did I endorse our brand).
I agree with you that their mindset is unhealthy, but that sentiment makes it no less real.
You have no argument from me - like I said, I never endorsed that point of view.
For some time now I've had the impression that the underlying fear and "hatred" that many Muslims (males) have of Western culture, stems from this:
The fear that in such a culture, they would not be guaranteed a virgin bride.
I'm serious. I think that 95% of the rules and "traditions" and treatment of women we see in this "traditional" culture is basically geared around an almost monomaniacal obsession with making sure that the culture supplies virgin women to marry.
This is even more speculative, of course, but one might further postulate that this obsession with suppressing female sexuality stems from deep sexual insecurity....
Translation: the men of Islamic cultures feel threatened by any culture in which they are not guaranteed a virgin bride. This is what "barbaric" boils down to - female sexuality. (And the suppression of women including "honor killings" that take place in their culture, of course, are not "barbaric" - because those things take place to ensure virgin brides.)
The result [of West's "barbaric" values] has been social atomization, dehumanization, and harm to the family and community.
Can't really argue with that. So instead of our "barbaric" freedoms, which admittedly have some bad results as described above, they would substitute cutting off peoples' hands, owning women as property, etc.
Pearse calls for a reform of belief and behavior in the West so that it increasingly resembles "the rest." He says this renewed moral vision should be based not on a culture of rights but of duty. Religious faith and life, he argues, must be brought back into the public square.
Here's the problem. Let's say Pearse is right that our conflict stems from our secularism. Let's say he's right that the conflict could be lessened, theoretically, by bringing religious faith and life "back into the public square".
But we can't do that without abandoning our Constitution. So if what he's saying is true, our Constitution makes it inevitable that we'll be in conflict with what are called "traditional" societies. The only real question then is whether we defend ourselves. I say yes.
When Muslims explain their anger, they tend to focus on Western and especially U.S. foreign policy.
The author of this book review (Woodberry) is trying to say that our foreign policy is too to blame. So I guess Woodberry buys into the idea that there's something objectively bad and anger-worthy about our foreign policy. What I wonder is whether Muslims would be so "angry" about our (supposedly horrible) foreign policy if they weren't constantly told to be angry about it, by propagandistic and sensationalistic state media with agendas. Our foreign policy makes someone angry, that's true enough, but it isn't necessarily first and foremost the Muslim masses. Perhaps it's the Muslim leaders who control the media with which they propagandize those masses.
If so, the question then becomes why our foreign policy makes certain powerful, propaganda-using Muslim leaders angry... but answering that question is pretty easy and does not support the notion that we need to change our foreign policy. So no US-foreign-policy-critic pursues this line of reasoning to begin with. But they should, because it would make things clearer. Islamic leaders are "angered" by our foreign policy because we inhibit their power. So what?
He said the idea of attacking buildings in the United States came to him when he was watching Israeli aircraft bombing tower blocks in Lebanon in 1982.
This, by the way, was a recent invention. He had never mentioned it much before. (Don't you remember that originally he was supposedly mad about our infidel troops being in Saudi Arabia?) Some have speculated that this Lebanon stuff was simply an attempt on OBL's part to get in good with Syria.
Also why is it supposed to be considered rational for OBL, a Saudi (country #1) to think of attacking the US (country #2) for something Israel (country #3) does to Lebanon (country #4)? Why does everyone accept the rationality of his pan-Islamism, as if we are required to bow down to it?
Accepting any of this uncritically, at face value, is silly. OBL is a power-seeker. He seeks to build an Islamic empire and the US stands in his way. So it's true, in a very stupid sense, that "US foreign policy" has caused "Islamic resentment", but there's not a damn thing we can OR SHOULD do about that. The primary "Islamic" in this equation is OBL, a spoiled wealthy brat who fantasizes about forming an empire. His "resentment" is the fact that he hasn't been able to form an empire. Well boo fricking hoo. He has no right to do so in the first place.
Yousef Qardawi, an influential cleric based in Qatar, disavows terrorism but denounces the United States for supporting Israel's occupation of Palestine, and now for occupying Iraq. People like Qardawi interpret these policies as a war against Islam.
And they are wrong. Treating them as if this paranoia is sanity simply obscures the fact that they are wrong. Why would Woodberry do that?
I suppose that Qardawi could be considered right in the sense that, to some zealous Muslims, "preventing the formation of an Islamic empire" is the same as "making war on Islam". But again, if so, there's nothing we can or should do about that.
Forming An Empire is not a universal human right.
If that's why they're angry at us - because we stand in the way - then tough s**t. Conflict is inevitable and we may as well get on with it.
I think it's all part of a very deep fear that our culture will corrupt (and destroy) their culture.
As to the root of these fears, we can speculate. It really doesn't matter - I really do think they fear our culture more than they fear our politics.
In the USA, in many cases a man with a cheating wife gets a divorce and she gets 1/2 of their marital property.
A woman with a cheating husband gets the same - a divorce and 1/2 of what the martial property.
In either case, the offending party also gets 1/2 of the marital property. Everone is free to find happiness someplace else.
In the Islamic world, the penalty for a cheating bride can be death. That's a pretty big disparity and has to hinge on a lot of different positions on policy and on culture.
The virgin bride thing, that may well be a big part of it. Clearly to me, at the very least, they don't want their daughters in belly revealing 1/2-Tshirts and tight cutoff jeans staying out until 2am (or 7:30pm for that matter). Similarly, they don't want their brides to advertise how 'juicy' their rear ends are and picking up prickly guys at the juice bar at the local gym and inviting them to their marital bed.
Some men fear (and/or hate) this so much that they are prepared to die to keep it away.
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